Cognition

August 2026

• Aug 13, 2026ConceptsInterleaving Practice ExplainedBlocked practice drills A A A A then B B B B and feels like steady progress. Interleaving shuffles the types so every problem forces you to work out which approach applies, the part blocked practice quietly skips. Learners consistently rate blocking as more effective even when interleaving produces better results on later tests, so the discomfort is the signal rather than the problem. The guide covers when to block first and how spacing compounds the effect.6 MIN1.7k

May 2026

• May 10, 2026IdeasCreative Block: Why It Happens and How to Break ItCreative work often stalls not from a shortage of ideas but because the material never becomes an organized direction. The DIKW ladder separates data from information, knowledge and judgment, and the hard step is the middle one. Roediger and Karpicke's 2006 study found that students who read a passage once and then tested themselves retained far more a week later than students who reread it four times, though the rereaders felt more confident.21 MIN1.5k

May 2025

• May 17, 2025CultureCultural Influences on Thinking and PerceptionMasuda and Nisbett showed participants one fish swimming ahead of a group and asked why it was in front. Americans said it was a leader with special traits; Japanese said the group was chasing or pushing it. Culture shapes not just what people think about but how they think: eye-tracking shows Americans fixate on the focal object while Chinese and Japanese viewers spread attention across the scene. Analytic and holistic styles compared.20 MIN40.7k
• May 12, 2025CultureHow Language Shapes ThoughtStrong linguistic determinism is largely rejected; the weaker claim, that language steers what you habitually notice and recall, has real evidence. Winawer and Boroditsky found Russian speakers, whose language treats light goluboy and dark siniy as separate basic colors, discriminated across that boundary faster than within it, and that the advantage disappeared when they silently repeated a number string. English speakers showed no boundary effect at all.23 MIN35.0k
• May 8, 2025CultureLinguistic Relativity ExplainedRussian marks light blue (goluboy) and dark blue (siniy) as separate basic colors. Winawer's 2007 PNAS study found Russian speakers discriminated two blues faster when the pair crossed that boundary, with no such advantage for English speakers. The effect disappeared under verbal interference but survived spatial interference, which pins language itself as the mechanism. Also: Kuuk Thaayorre cardinal directions, Boroditsky on time, and why the strong version was rejected.19 MIN14.2k

February 2025

• Feb 16, 2025ExplainersHow Evolution Made the MindPeople who fail the abstract Wason selection task solve the same logic easily when it is framed as a social contract, the result Cosmides and Tooby built The Adapted Mind on. The argument runs on through Hamilton's rule, reciprocal altruism, Dunbar's neocortex-to-group-size correlation of r = 0.76 to 0.78 and the group size of about 150 it predicts, and Buss's study of 37 cultures, then gives real weight to the spandrels, falsifiability and WEIRD-sampling objections.17 MIN4.3k

July 2024

• Jul 27, 2024ExplainersEffects of Sleep Deprivation: What Happens Without SleepThey adapt to being impaired and lose any baseline for comparison. Coffee does not help as much as it feels, since blocking adenosine receptors masks the accumulated signal rather than clearing it, which is what produces the crash. The page notes glymphatic waste clearance runs many times faster during sleep, and is careful that whether sleep debt is fully recoverable remains debated.16 MIN10.9k
• Jul 9, 2024ExplainersThe Neuroscience of Decision Making and EmotionsDamasio's patient Elliot retained vocabulary, memory and measured IQ after frontal surgery, yet could not decide how to file papers. On the Iowa Gambling Task, healthy players' palms started sweating at the losing decks before they could say which decks were bad; vmPFC patients never produced that signal. Covers dopamine prediction error and the orbitofrontal common currency.15 MIN2.2k